Adobe Reader Installation Woes

stefan — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:00:33 GMT

Yesterday I upgraded Adobe Reader to version 9, and I encountered a couple of issues.

It started with the inevitable toolbar offering:

Google Toolbar was selected by default, and while the big yellow "Download" button is placed prominently at the top of the page, the checkbox to opt out of Google Toolbar is way down, near the fold.

Next I had to install an ActiveX control, apparently a download manager. I wonder if/how Adobe will make sure I'll receive an updated version, should there be a security issue in this ActiveX control.

The actual installation went through without major problems. The FilesInUse dialog told me to close the browser window with Adobe's download page before the installation proceeds.

When the installation was finished I had two new items on my desktop:

As usual, Adobe placed a shortcut to launch Adobe Reader on my desktop, without asking. Not good, but no surprise.

But in addition Adobe created a folder on my desktop with the setup files (Setup.exe, AcroRead.msi, Data1.cab, etc.) in it. This brings up a couple of questions and concerns:

Why don't they extract the setup files to a temp folder, or somewhere in my application data folder?

What will happen if I delete this folder? Will this break Windows Installer maintenance operations like repair?

Why does the folder have full permissions for everyone? Yes, you're reading this correctly: Adobe placed a folder on my personal desktop, without asking me, and set the permissions on the folder so that everyone in the Users group has full access.

InstallSite Blog : Adobe

Adobe Reader Installation Woes